A common question to ALA is "How much does it cost a library to ...?" And it doesn't matter if the task is "to catalog a book," or "to answer a reference question," or "maintain a serial title," the answer is always, "It depends on how your library is structured and what you include in the cost factors." This page will collect various references to costing methodologies and studies.

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A common question to ALA is "How much does it cost a library to ...?" And it doesn't matter if the task is "to catalog a book," or "to answer a reference question," or "maintain a serial title," the answer is always, "It depends on how your library is structured and what you include in the cost factors." This page collects various references to costing methodologies and studies.

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In general, costs is one of those common questions for which there is no easy answer because each library is administered differently. It is also one of those areas where technology hasn't changed the basic process, though it has made certain aspects of gathering data easier. The subject of cost analysis has been addressed by a number of different committees within ALA over the years. It is also a common business function--and requires getting out your calculator, sharp pencils, and thinking skills.

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In brief, what's entailed is determining what costs support a function (staff salaries and benefits, supplies, allocable building support costs, etc.) and over how many units of output (borrowing and lending transactions performed, for example) those costs can be applied to get the cost per transaction. In some cases the literature will report the ranges of costs found by different institutions, so that you can get a sense of whether your institution is "in the ballpark."

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'''ALCTS Technical Services Costs Committee.''' "Guide to Cost Analysis of Acquisitions and Cataloging in Libraries." ''ALCTS Newsletter'' 2:5 (1991) pp. 49-52. The purpose of the Guide is to aid the user in arriving at a per unit cost for any acquisitions or cataloging function. Using pertinent budget and production statistics, plus the Guide to Cost Analysis of Acquisitions and Cataloging in Libraries table included in the article, the technical processing manager may arrive at a figure. Step-by-step instructions for using the Guide are included, as well as an extensive list of sample variables to be measured in technical services cost studies.

ALCTS Technical Services Costs Committee. "Guide to Cost Analysis of '''Acquisitions''' and '''Catalogin'''g in Libraries." ''ALCTS Newsletter'' 2:5 (1991) pp. 49-52. The purpose of the Guide is to aid the user in arriving at a per unit cost for any acquisitions or cataloging function. Using pertinent budget and production statistics, plus the Guide to Cost Analysis of Acquisitions and Cataloging in Libraries table included in the article, the technical processing manager may arrive at a figure. Step-by-step instructions for using the Guide are included, as well as an extensive list of sample variables to be measured in technical services cost studies.

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'''Chao, Dolly.''' "Cost Comparisons Between Bibliographic Utilities and CD-ROM-Based Cataloging Systems." ''Library Hi Tech'' (Issue 27) 7:3 (1989) pp. 49-52. Although comparing older technologies, this article discusses the major cost areas to consider when selecting an automated system for cataloging. These are: purchase/one-time costs; ongoing costs; and staff resource costs. Sample worksheets are included for calculating costs in each of these areas for either a bibliographic utility or a CD-ROM-based cataloging system.

'''Cooper, Michael D.''' "The Costs of Providing Electronic Journal Access and Printed Copies of Journals to University Users." ''Library Quarterly,'' vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 323-351. Six models for analyzing costs options for the University of California.

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Boucher, Virginia. "Appendix EE" ''Interlibrary Loan Practices Handbook.'' Chicago: ALA, 1996. Presents a step-by-step process for figuring out the average cost of an '''interlibrary loan transaction'''. For information on the average cost for these transactions in academic and research libraries, as tracked by the Association for Research Libraries, most recently by Mary E. Jackson, the references on the the [[InterLibrary Loan]] page for a bibliography.

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'''Daugherty, Richard M.''' "Costs" in ''Streamlining Library Services: What We Do, How Much Time It Takes, What It Costs, and How We Can Do It Better.'' Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2008.

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Dudden, Rosalind F. ''Using '''Benchmarking''', Needs Assessment, Quality Improvement, Outcome Measurement, and '''Library Standards'''''. New York, NY.: Neal-Schuman, 2007. This guide aims to explain the most important and popular assessment techniques in straight-forward language, and to use step-by-step instructions to teach the reader how to perform '''evaluation studies''' with skill and competence. Includes a CD-ROM.

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'''Harris, George D.''' "Historic Cataloging Costs, Issues, and Trends." ''Library Quarterly'' 59:1 (Jan. 1989) pp 1-21. The author looks at cataloging costs from 1876 to 1986. He conducted a 1986 survey of 179 of the largest academic libraries; he had 117 responses. For these libraries, the cost of copy cataloging was used in finding the average costs of 34 libraries. Other libraries gave a range of figures; with these, the author used the lower figure. For libraries that gave one figure for both monographs and serials into one figure, the highest figure was $53.00 and the lowest was $14.67. For libraries giving separate figures for monographs, the range was from $32.00 for original cataloging at one university to a low of $6.43 at another. The study found the average cataloging costs for 34 libraries as $17.17 and the median as $15.00. The author cautions readers that "'cataloging costs' means something different at every single library in the country."

'''Hirshon, Arnold and Barbara Winters.''' ''Outsourcing Technical Services: A How-to-do-it Manual for Librarians.'' New York: Neal-Schuman, 1995. In order to determine whether outsourcing a function is the right decision, it is necessary to analyze all relevant costs.

Chao, Dolly. "Cost Comparisons Between Bibliographic Utilities and CD-ROM-Based Cataloging Systems." ''Library Hi Tech'' (Issue 27) 7:3 (1989) pp. 49-52. Although comparing older technologies, this article discusses the major cost areas to consider when selecting an automated system for '''cataloging'''. These are: purchase/one-time costs; ongoing costs; and staff resource costs. Sample worksheets are included for calculating costs in each of these areas for either a bibliographic utility or a CD-ROM-based cataloging system.

Cooper, Michael D. "The Costs of Providing '''Electronic Journal Access''' and Printed Copies of Journals to University Users." ''Library Quarterly,'' vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 323-351. Six models for analyzing costs options for the University of California.

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'''Jackson, Mary E.''' [http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/illdds.pdf Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services (PDF)]. ''ARL: A Bimonthly Newsletter of Research Library Issues and Actions'' [http://www.arl.org/newsltr/195/illdds.html Issue 195].(December 1997). Jackson found that on average, the unit cost to research libraries to borrow an item on interlibrary loan is $18.35, and the cost to lend an item is $9.48. Average borrowing turnaround time is 16 calendar days, the borrowing fill rate is 85%, and the lending fill rate is 58%.

Daugherty, Richard M. "Costs" in ''Streamlining Library '''Services''': What We Do, How Much Time It Takes, What It Costs, and How We Can Do It Better.'' Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2008.

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'''Kingma, Bruce.''' ''The Economics of Information: A Guide to Economic and Cost-Benefit Analysis for Information Professionals.'' 2d ed. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 2001. This is a text-book treatment of economics as applied to examples in the field of library and information management, including publishing. There is a thorough discussion of fixed and variable costs, as well as marginal costs and cost/benefit analysis.

Franklin, Brinley. "Managing the Electronic Collection with Cost Per Use Data." [http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/papers/098e-Franklin.pdf Presentation at the 70th IFLA Conference and Council, August 22-27, 2004.]

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Harris, George D. "Historic '''Cataloging''' Costs, Issues, and Trends." ''Library Quarterly'' 59:1 (Jan. 1989) pp 1-21. The author looks at cataloging costs from 1876 to 1986. He conducted a 1986 survey of 179 of the largest academic libraries; he had 117 responses. For these libraries, the cost of copy cataloging was used in finding the average costs of 34 libraries. Other libraries gave a range of figures; with these, the author used the lower figure. For libraries that gave one figure for both monographs and serials into one figure, the highest figure was $53.00 and the lowest was $14.67. For libraries giving separate figures for monographs, the range was from $32.00 for original cataloging at one university to a low of $6.43 at another. The study found the average cataloging costs for 34 libraries as $17.17 and the median as $15.00. The author cautions readers that "'cataloging costs' means something different at every single library in the country."

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Hirshon, Arnold and Barbara Winters. ''Outsourcing '''Technical Services''': A How-to-do-it Manual for Librarians.'' New York: Neal-Schuman, 1995. In order to determine whether outsourcing a function is the right decision, it is necessary to analyze all relevant costs.

Jackson, Mary E. [http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/illdds.pdf Measuring the Performance of '''Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services''' (PDF)]. ''ARL: A Bimonthly Newsletter of Research Library Issues and Actions'' [http://www.arl.org/newsltr/195/illdds.html Issue 195].(December 1997). Jackson found that on average, the unit cost to research libraries to borrow an item on interlibrary loan is $18.35, and the cost to lend an item is $9.48. Average borrowing turnaround time is 16 calendar days, the borrowing fill rate is 85%, and the lending fill rate is 58%.

Kingma, Bruce. ''The Economics of Information: A Guide to Economic and '''Cost-Benefit Analysis''' for Information Professionals.'' 2d ed. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 2001. This is a text-book treatment of economics as applied to examples in the field of library and information management, including publishing. There is a thorough discussion of fixed and variable costs, as well as marginal costs and cost/benefit analysis.

Kusack reviews the reasons for preparing costs studies and provides a guide to using the resultant information of effective management decisions. His is a common-sense, narrative review of the steps involved in determining the costs of operations, services, or space.

Kusack reviews the reasons for preparing costs studies and provides a guide to using the resultant information of effective management decisions. His is a common-sense, narrative review of the steps involved in determining the costs of operations, services, or space.

This study was conducted at one University. While the figures cited are specific to that University at one particular time, the model can by used by other libraries to determine their own costs. For 1984, this library's average costs for all levels of cataloging (per unit) were $14.65, for original cataloging $44.53, for variant cataloging $17.61, for copy offline cataloging $10.40, and for copy online cataloging $8.22.

This study was conducted at one University. While the figures cited are specific to that University at one particular time, the model can by used by other libraries to determine their own costs. For 1984, this library's average costs for all levels of cataloging (per unit) were $14.65, for original cataloging $44.53, for variant cataloging $17.61, for copy offline cataloging $10.40, and for copy online cataloging $8.22.

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'''Morris, Dilys E.''' "Staff Time and Costs for Cataloging." ''Library Resources & Technical Services'' 36:1 (Jan. 1992) pp. 79-95. Morris reports on the first three years of a longitudinal study begun in 1987 by the Iowa State University Library Technical Services Division. The purpose of the study was to investigate changes in task times, staffing patterns, and personnel costs as automation was expanded. During sample weeks, technical services staff recorded the time worked according to defined tasks grouped within cost centers. Salary data was also recorded for the sample weeks. Results show the proportion of time spent at tasks, trends and changes over time, and per-title cataloging time and costs.

Morris, Dilys E. "Staff Time and Costs for '''Cataloging'''." ''Library Resources & Technical Services'' 36:1 (Jan. 1992) pp. 79-95. Morris reports on the first three years of a longitudinal study begun in 1987 by the Iowa State University Library Technical Services Division. The purpose of the study was to investigate changes in task times, staffing patterns, and personnel costs as automation was expanded. During sample weeks, technical services staff recorded the time worked according to defined tasks grouped within cost centers. Salary data was also recorded for the sample weeks. Results show the proportion of time spent at tasks, trends and changes over time, and per-title cataloging time and costs.

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Oldfield, William R. "'''Cataloguing''' and Catalogue Maintenance: Functional Cost Allocation System." ''Technical Services Quarterly'' 5:2 (1987) pp 55-65. The author describes a functional cost-allocation system applicable to any university library through the identification of 11 generic cataloging functions. An annual unit cost for each function allows the rate of increase or decrease to be monitored.

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''Outsourcing Cataloging, Authority Work and Physical '''Processing''': A Checklist of Considerations.'' Chicago: ALA, 1995. Among the points on the checklist is a thorough understanding of the costs.

Poll, Roswitha. "Library Management with Cost Data." [http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/papers/099e-Poll.pdf Presentation at the 70th IFLA General Conference and Council, August 22-27, 2004.]

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'''Oldfield, William R.''' "Cataloguing and Catalogue Maintenance: Functional Cost Allocation System." ''Technical Services Quarterly'' 5:2 (1987) pp 55-65. The author describes a functional cost-allocation system applicable to any university library through the identification of 11 generic cataloging functions. An annual unit cost for each function allows the rate of increase or decrease to be monitored.

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Riemer, John J. "Reality Check: ROI for '''Bibliographic Control'''." ''Technicalities,'' May/June 2011, v. 31, no. 3, p. 1, 6-9. See also [http://connect.ala.org/files/7981/costvaluetaskforcereport2010_06_18_pdf_77542.pdf Final Report of the Task Force on Cost/Value Assessment of Bibliographic Control'] submitted to the Heads of Technical Services in Large Research Libraries Interest Group, June 18, 2010.

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'''''Outsourcing Cataloging, Authority Work and Physical Processing: A Checklist of Considerations.''''' Chicago: ALA, 1995. Among the points on the checklist is a thorough understanding of the costs.

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Saffady, William. "The Cost of Automated '''Cataloging''' Support: An Analysis and Comparison of Selected Products and Services." ''Library Technical Reports'' 25:4 (July-August 1989). This issue of LTR is primarily devoted to automated commercial cataloging products and services and their comparative costs. The author describes the major commercial products (i.e., bibliographic utilities, cataloging via online information services, CD-ROM cataloging systems, and microfiche and printed cataloging tools) and creates a model through which the costs of cataloging with these systems can be directly compared.

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'''Saffady, William.''' "The Cost of Automated Cataloging Support: An Analysis and Comparison of Selected Products and Services." ''Library Technical Reports'' 25:4 (July-August 1989). This issue of LTR is primarily devoted to automated commercial cataloging products and services and their comparative costs. The author describes the major commercial products (i.e., bibliographic utilities, cataloging via online information services, CD-ROM cataloging systems, and microfiche and printed cataloging tools) and creates a model through which the costs of cataloging with these systems can be directly compared.

Revision as of 12:07, 20 September 2012

A common question to ALA is "How much does it cost a library to ...?" And it doesn't matter if the task is "to catalog a book," or "to answer a reference question," or "maintain a serial title," the answer is always, "It depends on how your library is structured and what you include in the cost factors." This page collects various references to costing methodologies and studies.

In general, costs is one of those common questions for which there is no easy answer because each library is administered differently. It is also one of those areas where technology hasn't changed the basic process, though it has made certain aspects of gathering data easier. The subject of cost analysis has been addressed by a number of different committees within ALA over the years. It is also a common business function--and requires getting out your calculator, sharp pencils, and thinking skills.

In brief, what's entailed is determining what costs support a function (staff salaries and benefits, supplies, allocable building support costs, etc.) and over how many units of output (borrowing and lending transactions performed, for example) those costs can be applied to get the cost per transaction. In some cases the literature will report the ranges of costs found by different institutions, so that you can get a sense of whether your institution is "in the ballpark."

References

ALCTS Technical Services Costs Committee. "Guide to Cost Analysis of Acquisitions and Cataloging in Libraries." ALCTS Newsletter 2:5 (1991) pp. 49-52. The purpose of the Guide is to aid the user in arriving at a per unit cost for any acquisitions or cataloging function. Using pertinent budget and production statistics, plus the Guide to Cost Analysis of Acquisitions and Cataloging in Libraries table included in the article, the technical processing manager may arrive at a figure. Step-by-step instructions for using the Guide are included, as well as an extensive list of sample variables to be measured in technical services cost studies.

Berry, Louise. "The Library Shopper." The Bottom Line 3:4 (1989) pp. 31. In a small sidebar, the author reports per-book costs for cataloging in her library. She reports that: (1) a library technical assistant cataloging "children's books, fiction, and easy nonfiction" costs $1.76 per book; and (2) a department head doing "original and problem cataloging" costs $8.40 per book. Calculating methodology is not provided.

Boucher, Virginia. "Appendix EE" Interlibrary Loan Practices Handbook. Chicago: ALA, 1996. Presents a step-by-step process for figuring out the average cost of an interlibrary loan transaction. For information on the average cost for these transactions in academic and research libraries, as tracked by the Association for Research Libraries, most recently by Mary E. Jackson, the references on the the InterLibrary Loan page for a bibliography.

Dudden, Rosalind F. Using Benchmarking, Needs Assessment, Quality Improvement, Outcome Measurement, and Library Standards. New York, NY.: Neal-Schuman, 2007. This guide aims to explain the most important and popular assessment techniques in straight-forward language, and to use step-by-step instructions to teach the reader how to perform evaluation studies with skill and competence. Includes a CD-ROM.

Chao, Dolly. "Cost Comparisons Between Bibliographic Utilities and CD-ROM-Based Cataloging Systems." Library Hi Tech (Issue 27) 7:3 (1989) pp. 49-52. Although comparing older technologies, this article discusses the major cost areas to consider when selecting an automated system for cataloging. These are: purchase/one-time costs; ongoing costs; and staff resource costs. Sample worksheets are included for calculating costs in each of these areas for either a bibliographic utility or a CD-ROM-based cataloging system.

Cooper, Michael D. "The Costs of Providing Electronic Journal Access and Printed Copies of Journals to University Users." Library Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 323-351. Six models for analyzing costs options for the University of California.

Harris, George D. "Historic Cataloging Costs, Issues, and Trends." Library Quarterly 59:1 (Jan. 1989) pp 1-21. The author looks at cataloging costs from 1876 to 1986. He conducted a 1986 survey of 179 of the largest academic libraries; he had 117 responses. For these libraries, the cost of copy cataloging was used in finding the average costs of 34 libraries. Other libraries gave a range of figures; with these, the author used the lower figure. For libraries that gave one figure for both monographs and serials into one figure, the highest figure was $53.00 and the lowest was $14.67. For libraries giving separate figures for monographs, the range was from $32.00 for original cataloging at one university to a low of $6.43 at another. The study found the average cataloging costs for 34 libraries as $17.17 and the median as $15.00. The author cautions readers that "'cataloging costs' means something different at every single library in the country."

Hirshon, Arnold and Barbara Winters. Outsourcing Technical Services: A How-to-do-it Manual for Librarians. New York: Neal-Schuman, 1995. In order to determine whether outsourcing a function is the right decision, it is necessary to analyze all relevant costs.

Jackson, Mary E. Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services (PDF). ARL: A Bimonthly Newsletter of Research Library Issues and ActionsIssue 195.(December 1997). Jackson found that on average, the unit cost to research libraries to borrow an item on interlibrary loan is $18.35, and the cost to lend an item is $9.48. Average borrowing turnaround time is 16 calendar days, the borrowing fill rate is 85%, and the lending fill rate is 58%.

Kingma, Bruce. The Economics of Information: A Guide to Economic and Cost-Benefit Analysis for Information Professionals. 2d ed. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 2001. This is a text-book treatment of economics as applied to examples in the field of library and information management, including publishing. There is a thorough discussion of fixed and variable costs, as well as marginal costs and cost/benefit analysis.

Kusack, James Michael. “Understanding and Controlling the Costs of Library Services.” Library Administration & Management 16:3 (Summer 2002) pp. 151-155.
Kusack reviews the reasons for preparing costs studies and provides a guide to using the resultant information of effective management decisions. His is a common-sense, narrative review of the steps involved in determining the costs of operations, services, or space.

Leung, Shirley W. "Study of the Cataloging Costs at the University of California, Riverside." Technical Services Quarterly 5:1 (1987) pp 57-66.
This study was conducted at one University. While the figures cited are specific to that University at one particular time, the model can by used by other libraries to determine their own costs. For 1984, this library's average costs for all levels of cataloging (per unit) were $14.65, for original cataloging $44.53, for variant cataloging $17.61, for copy offline cataloging $10.40, and for copy online cataloging $8.22.

Morris, Dilys E. "Staff Time and Costs for Cataloging." Library Resources & Technical Services 36:1 (Jan. 1992) pp. 79-95. Morris reports on the first three years of a longitudinal study begun in 1987 by the Iowa State University Library Technical Services Division. The purpose of the study was to investigate changes in task times, staffing patterns, and personnel costs as automation was expanded. During sample weeks, technical services staff recorded the time worked according to defined tasks grouped within cost centers. Salary data was also recorded for the sample weeks. Results show the proportion of time spent at tasks, trends and changes over time, and per-title cataloging time and costs.

Oldfield, William R. "Cataloguing and Catalogue Maintenance: Functional Cost Allocation System." Technical Services Quarterly 5:2 (1987) pp 55-65. The author describes a functional cost-allocation system applicable to any university library through the identification of 11 generic cataloging functions. An annual unit cost for each function allows the rate of increase or decrease to be monitored.

Outsourcing Cataloging, Authority Work and Physical Processing: A Checklist of Considerations. Chicago: ALA, 1995. Among the points on the checklist is a thorough understanding of the costs.

Saffady, William. "The Cost of Automated Cataloging Support: An Analysis and Comparison of Selected Products and Services." Library Technical Reports 25:4 (July-August 1989). This issue of LTR is primarily devoted to automated commercial cataloging products and services and their comparative costs. The author describes the major commercial products (i.e., bibliographic utilities, cataloging via online information services, CD-ROM cataloging systems, and microfiche and printed cataloging tools) and creates a model through which the costs of cataloging with these systems can be directly compared.